Every day, on the pedestrian street Bohaterów Monte Cassino at number 53 of Sopotin Poland, tourists and passers -by stop to photograph a building that seems on the point of merged. There Krzywy Domekliterally the “crooked house”, It is a shopping center of the Rezydent group that hosts, in 4000 square meters, restaurants (a real Food Hall), shops, offices and other activities. Made in 2004 On a project by the architects Małgorzata and Szczepan Szotyński, together with Leszek Zaleski, the building is inspired by the fairytale universe of the works of Jan Marcin Szancer (Polish artist and illustrator of children’s books) e For Oscar Dahlberg (Swedish painter residing in Sopot), including, in formal solutions, references ranging from the deconstructivism of Frank Gehry At the Catalan modernism of Antoni Gaudí. The adoption of such an unusual architectural language responds to a precise need: to give visibility to a stable at commercial intended, enhancing its attraction and making it immediately recognizable.
How the Storta house was built: aesthetics and structure
In Krzywy Domek nothing is linear, or at least it is not on the facade (inside it is a normal building). The front contracts and expands, as if it were reflected in a deforming mirror; The windows are all different from each other and the roof, covered with blue and green enameled tiles, recalls the scales of a dragon, or perhaps those of the famous Batlló house in Gaudí. The cartoonish effect is obviously not the result of an optical illusion, but the result of a meticulous design that has made it possible to create very complex and articulated forms. The structure is in fact not so trivial, it consists of a frame in reinforced concretewhich acts as a load -bearing skeleton of the building, and from secondary steel pylons, used to support and model the sinuous outlines in the prospectus.
The use of colored glass, enameled panels, frames and decorations in relief, emphasizes the fairytale character of the Krzywy Domek, which changes appearance depending on the angle from which it is observed. In front of the entrance there is also the Polish Wall of Famea wall that pays homage to the most well -known personalities of the Polish culture and show; The installation contributes to consolidating the iconicity of the building: one of the main points of tourist interest in the city.
The strangest buildings: the crooked houses in the world
Included in the Eleven ranking Strange buildings of Europe from the CNN, Krzywy Domek is not the only one “crooked“or”drunken“ house existing in the world. In Prague, the Dancing House – also known as “Fred & Ginger” for his silhouette who vaguely recalls a couple of dancers – is an interesting example of deconstructivist architecture That bears the signature of Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić. The building, built between 1992 and 1996, is made up of two volumes flanked: one sinuous, all glass, the other in concrete, more massive and dotted with misaligned windows.
In the United Kingdom, in historic villages such as Lavenham, Himley, Windsor And Canterburythere are numerous Crooked case: buildings that, over time, have folded due to the natural withdrawal of wood or soil sagging. The most popular, precisely because of its characteristic aspect, in fact, of an unwanted anomaly, is the Crooked House of Windsor.
Also known as Market Cross Houseit is the oldest tea house in England (16th century) and owes its marked inclination to a reconstruction performed hastily, using green oak and non -seasoned wood. For about a century he maintained the structures perfectly vertical, until the settlement of the material deformed the lines. Today counted among the assets of Grado II for its historical and cultural relief, it is one of the most appreciated attractions of the place.
